Constantine

Constantine - **1/2

Acclaimed music video director Francis Lawrence's "Constantine", an adaptation of the DC coming book "Hellblazer", is filled with promise. It stars Keanu Reeves, the bankable action star who seems at his best when fighting an unseen evil force. The supporting cast includes Rachel Weisz, Tilda Swinton, Djimon Hounsou and Shia LaBeuof. The special effects are fantastic, and the premise is intriguing. Unfortunately, its director shows his lack of experience as the film runs out of steam after the first act, leaving the rest of the film a confusing, silly mess despite its best intentions. Reeves leads the star studded cast of the film as John Constantine, a once-dead misfit hoping to buy his way into heaven with a series of good deeds and exorcisms. When he meets Weisz's Angela Dodson, a policewoman dealing with the suicide of her sister Isabel, they begin to unravel a mystery with catastrophic implications. While there is plenty to like about this movie, I feel that it's a bit too derivative of another religion themed movie, Dogma. Like Dogma, we see our unlikely heroes teamed with pretty yet hard nosed women and set out to save the world from demons acting away from Satan's control. Like Dogma, we hear the "humans aren't good enough" speech from the eventually revealed villain (interestingly enough, it happens in both movies around the same time our leading lady is seen emerging from a pool of water soaked from head to toe). Unfortunately unlike Dogma, we're supposed to take this movie seriously, and because of some of the inherited silliness, it just doesn't work for me. Constantine is an interesting but ultimately disappointing action thriller. Thumbs down.